Pittsburgh Penguins should definitely not trade Kris Letang

Trading Kris Letang would make absolutely zero sense for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Three things are certain in life – death, taxes, and trade rumors about Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Kris Letang. Four if you include the annual Evgeni Malkin trade rumors. The annual tradition of hearing Letang’s name in trade rumors has started again. And as usual, they make absolutely zero sense.

This year’s rumors come from Rob Rossi of The Athletic. Reportedly, Letang is very uncertain about his future with the team and told his teammates he “expects to be traded”. According to a league source, Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford has asked other GMs if they’d have interest in him.

These rumors make zero sense for the Penguins for several reasons. The most obvious one being Letang is still objectively a top defenseman. No matter which metric you use to determine a team’s number one defenseman, Letang’s probably on top of it.

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At 5v5, he averaged nearly two more minutes per game than Brian Dumoulin in second place. Letang led all Penguins defensemen in 5v5 goals per hour and 5v5 points per hour, though it should be noted John Marino was darn close to him in those areas and had more 5v5 assists per hour than Letang (0.90 to 0.89).

On paper, his underlying stats were a bit low. But there’s a reason for that – Jack Johnson. Injuries limited his usual defensive partner, Brian Dumoulin, to just 28 games. In about 300 5v5 minutes together, Letang and Dumoulin were their usual dominant selves.

Johnson, however, was awful with Letang. He dragged him down quite a bit. Johnson drags down virtually everyone who plays with him, so Letang shouldn’t be blamed for not playing well with him.

Secondly, trading Letang makes very little sense if they’re a serious Stanley Cup contender. A team hoping to win a Stanley Cup should not count on someone like John Marino to be their number one defenseman. And the Penguins are still hoping to win a Stanley Cup.

Or at least they better be, because otherwise, trading a top prospect and a first-round pick to the Toronto Maple Leafs for Kasperi Kapanen would make even less sense than it currently does. It makes a hint of sense for an all-in team like the Penguins. But for a team that would trade their top defenseman? Yeah, probably not.

The Penguins probably aren’t getting fair value for Letang at this point, so it’s hard to see the Penguins trading Letang and being a better team for it. If they trade him, Marino would probably be their number one defenseman, at least on the right side. But then you’re stuck with Chad Ruhwedel as your next best right-handed internal option. Sure, the Penguins could play someone on their off-side, but losing Letang messes up the entire blueline.

It’s not like the external options are much better. Alex Pietrangelo would probably be an upgrade, but by how much? Also, keep in mind Letang’s current cap hit is $7.25 million. Pietrangelo’s could easily be $1.75 million higher than that.

The trade market has some interesting options, but keep in mind the Penguins aren’t overflowing with assets right now. They just traded their 2020 first-round pick and they don’t have a 2021 first-round pick because of the Jason Zucker trade. In the next two drafts, they have just eight picks combined and just one of them is before the third round.

All this points to one truth. The Penguins probably aren’t find a defenseman out there who’s better than Letang and they could feasibly obtain. Ergo, there’s no reason the Pittsburgh Penguins should even be thinking about trading him.

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Trading Letang isn’t something a Stanley Cup contender does. It’s something a team with a closed Stanley Cup window does. The Penguins window might very well be closed, but their recent trade for Kapanen sure suggests their front office doesn’t think it’s closed.

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